Inkplate 6COLOR – GET & POST Request

Now that your Inkplate has internet access, you can use it to exchange information/data with sensors, custom services or your APIs. Below are examples showing how to receive and send data over the internet with Inkplate.

GET Request

Use HTTP GET request to easily download and handle data on your Inkplate. This example shows how to use GET for .html file and print it on Inkplate.

# Include needed libraries
from inkplate6COLOR import Inkplate
import network
import socket
import time

# WiFi credentials
SSID = "YOUR_SSID_HERE"
PASSWORD = "YOU_PASSWORD_HERE"

# Connect to WiFi network
def do_connect():
    connected = False
    if not sta_if.isconnected():
        println("Connecting to network...")
        sta_if.active(True)
        try:
            sta_if.connect(SSID, PASSWORD)
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Wi-Fi connect error: {e}\n")
            print("Check your credentials!")
        else:
            timeout = 30  # seconds
            start = time.ticks_ms()

            while not sta_if.isconnected():
                if time.ticks_diff(time.ticks_ms(), start) > timeout * 1000:
                    print("Failed to connect within timeout")
                    break
                time.sleep(0.5)
            else:
                connected = True
    else:
        connected = True

    if connected:
        print(f"CONNECTED: \n{sta_if.ifconfig()}")
        return True
    else:
        return False

# This function does a HTTP GET request
# More info here: https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/esp8266/tutorial/network_tcp.html
def http_get(url):
    res = ""
    _, _, host, path = url.split("/", 3)
    addr = socket.getaddrinfo(host, 80)[0][-1]
    s = socket.socket()
    s.connect(addr)
    s.send(bytes("GET /%s HTTP/1.0\r\nHost: %s\r\n\r\n" % (path, host), "utf8"))
    while True:
        data = s.recv(100)
        if data:
            res += str(data, "utf8")
        else:
            break
    s.close()
    return res

# Connect to WiFi
if not do_connect():
    raise SystemExit("WiFi connection failed")

# Do a GET request to the webhook platform
# Change the url to do GET request to a different page
response = http_get("http://webhook.site/c8c5e570-639e-47bd-860a-e4343b8e9d85")

# Remove the header part from response so that we only print HTML part
parts = response.split("\r\n\r\n", 1)
if len(parts) > 1:
    html = parts[1]
else:
    html = response

# Create and initialize inkplate object
inkplate = Inkplate()
inkplate.begin()

# Set text size to double from the original size, so we can see the text better
inkplate.setTextSize(1)

# Print response line by line
inkplate.print(html)

# Display content from buffer
inkplate.display()

Expected HTML output on display

POST Request

To send data from Inkplate to a web server we'll use ThingSpeak.com, which is a great free online IoT platform. To send data to ThingSpeak with a POST request, you need your channel's Write API Key. You can find this key under Channels tab in your account, opening the channel you created, and checking under the API Keys section. This key is used in your request when sending data.

from inkplate6COLOR import Inkplate
import network
import socket

# Replace with your credentials
SSID = ""
PASSWORD = ""

# ThingSpeak Write API key
API_KEY = ""

# Initialize Inkplate
inkplate = Inkplate()
inkplate.begin()

def do_connect():
    connected = False
    if not sta_if.isconnected():
        println("Connecting to network...")
        sta_if.active(True)
        try:
            sta_if.connect(SSID, PASSWORD)
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Wi-Fi connect error: {e}\n")
            print("Check your credentials!")
        else:
            timeout = 30  # seconds
            start = time.ticks_ms()

            while not sta_if.isconnected():
                if time.ticks_diff(time.ticks_ms(), start) > timeout * 1000:
                    print("Failed to connect within timeout")
                    break
                time.sleep(0.5)
            else:
                connected = True
    else:
        connected = True

    if connected:
        print(f"CONNECTED: \n{sta_if.ifconfig()}")
        return True
    else:
        return False

# Function to sent HTTP Post request
def http_post(url, data, host):
    addr = socket.getaddrinfo(host, 80)[0][-1] # 
    s = socket.socket()                        # Create a TCP socket
    s.connect(addr)                            # Connect to server (ThingSpeak)

    # Build HTTP POST request
    request = (
        "POST /update HTTP/1.1\r\n"                            # Method (POST), path (/update), protocol (HTTP/1.1)
        "Host: " + host + "\r\n"                               # Specify host
        "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n"  # Data format to send
        "Content-Length: " + str(len(data)) + "\r\n"           # Content lenght
        "Connection: close\r\n\r\n" +                          # Close connection after response + end of header
        data                                                   # The actual data
    )

    s.send(bytes(request, "utf8")) # Send full HTTP request
    res = ""
    while True:
        buf = s.recv(100) # Read server response
        if not buf:
            break
        res += str(buf, "utf8")

    s.close() # Close the socket
    return res # Return server Response

# Connect to WiFi
if not do_connect():
    raise SystemExit("WiFi connection failed")

# Example: update field1 with value 125
payload = "api_key={}&field1={}".format(API_KEY, 125)

response = http_post("http://api.thingspeak.com/update", payload, "api.thingspeak.com")

# Display HTTP response data
inkplate.print(response)
inkplate.display()

Expected HTTP response output on display